To understand what the contemporary world offers to us by way of culture of the masses, here follow some input for reflection. Gobalization of economy was made possible with modern media, and it is now sustained by the culture of the masses.
The so-called “reference” media seem to believe in and promote eclecticism. They exclude no one from their target range, bringing thereby into their net a largest possible quantity of readers, watchers or hearers. As a result we see an excessive hybridism, which seems to be directed to the “average reader”, a breed very difficult to define. Massification of culture tends to please all, but usually ends up by pleasing none. The so-called “average” client reduces everyone to doubtful competences, if not to an ignorant lot, or to children in need of basics. Books and magazines are edited and marketed to a public that has generally little or no interest in them.
Beside the interest to increase the number of clients in order to achieve financial viability, and even to make profits, one cannot deny entirely the interest in acknowledging the right of every citizen to be informed. But this latter objective needs a critical analysis and clarifications about the identity of the agents who are interested in this massification of culture. The origin of this interest goes far back to early modern age and the invention of the printing press.
From the above we can view the technological progress as an ongoing extension of the early use of stone implements and other primitive tools by the human species to overcome its physical limitations in bypassing or overcoming the obstacles or threats to its existence. The stone age was replaced by copper, iron and bronze ages. The new inventions continued, though they grew differently and were applied differently in the East and the West.
Asia far outdistanced the Europe in knowledge of science and pursuit of technology in the pre-modern times. It is generally admitted that the Chinese knew about the compass, the gun-powder and the paper. The Indians were knowledgeable about mathematics and astronomical calculations. However, the tropical fertility and natural resources, demographic excess and abundant labour did not help to promote technology to solve economic pressures, as happened in Europe which invested in the Industrial Revolution.
The Chinese used the gun-powder for pyrotechnics for big scale celebrations. An early Portuguese chronicler was amused and impressed by the fact that the Chinese used wind power and sails not just for navigation in the seas, but also for propelling carts on the land. The Indians put their mathematical and astrological / astronomical knowledge to organize seasonal economic activities and to manage the social structure with ever more accurate predictions of natural phenomena and drawing of horoscopes.
It was in Europe that applied technology was vital to resolve serious demographic unbalance, enhanced by frequent internecine feudal conflicts and in the 14th century by the notorious Black Death which decimated nearly a third of Europe’s population. Most historians are aware of the famous debate between Maurice Dobb and Paul Sweezy (1953) about the role of the Black Death in Europe’s transition from Feudalism to Capitalism.
That crisis was enhanced by the little ice age with its first phase spanning from 1300 to around late 1400s. Its catastrophic impact on natural resources and causing military conflicts propelled the Europeans into the so-called age of Discoveries. They were helped in this process by technologies acquired from Asia via the Arabs, the great mediators of knowledge in the pre-Modern age as a result of the Islamic expansion worldwide. It is baffling indeed how the Islamic World lost that élan in such a drastic way in the contemporary age.
Coming back to our reflection on technology of communications, it was put well at the service of economic advancement by the growing European middle class (which we could classify as rising bourgeoisie) of the north European countries creating the first north-south divide within Europe, namely the rich Protestant north and the poor Catholic south.
To break of the hold of the Church-backed politics that dominated Europe since the collapse of the Roman empire and throughout the Middle Ages was a first great strategic step in this process. Even though the Church-blessed Inquisition sought to stem the tide of dissent, it failed to counter the corrosive impact of the cartoons that were widely circulated by the newly invented Gutenberg press. Translations of the Bible into vernacular languages also diluted the control of God´s Word by the clerics. [http://bit.ly/1L8jxD5]
The age of Enlightenment promoted encyclopedias under the direction of Diderot, Voltaire and associates widening the anti-Church campaign with their slogan “Écrasez l’infâme” (Crush the infamous). It was a prelude to the French Revolution, which marked a political victory of the French bourgeoisie, and permitted the rise in the early 19th century of liberal politics that put to good use the periodical press for propagating the liberal ideals.
At no stage the press was neutral. Certainly not when as a tool of the Church, but neither in the hands of the lay bourgeoisie. The information quality and quantity was always targeted to mobilize the masses and to manipulate them for their respective causes. Presently we have reached a phase of media coverage through smartphones and a myriad other devices. The masses swallow much of it ever more uncritically. A mass promotion of mediocrity.
(Teotonio R. de Souza is the founder-director, Xavier Centre of Historical Research, Goa (1979-1994).
